By Amine Souadka, Hajar Essangri, Amine Benkabbou, et al., EClinical Medicine, May 17, 2020
During the COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare professionals are exposed to a high-risk of infection and mental health problems, but also fear of contagion and spreading the virus to their families. In fact, considering them as individuals implies looking beyond their function as frontline responders and taking into account their societal role as parents, spouses and offspring.
While work-family balance is a common challenge for caregivers, this crisis comes with unprecedented threats. Spouses of healthcare professionals live in a state of fear as they're well aware of the actual shortage of human resources and protective equipment, in addition to dealing with an overload of responsibilities. In fact, parenting children alone in the absence of school or daycare is being discussed as one of the burdens of the COVID-19 outbreak with organizations such as the WHO providing instructions to handling “parenting stress”, yet recommendations on parenting for healthcare professionals and their spouses remain undiscussed.
Furthermore, as up to 40 % of healthcare workers marry each other, the childcare crisis may cause greater impact. Even relatives' support may not be available because of strict quarantine. Furthermore, in low-income countries such as Morocco where public social services are lacking, the disruption of traditional solidarity systems may worsen the situation. In this context, children of healthcare workers may undergo, besides the negative effects of confinement [4], additional emotional instability caused by the absence of both parents. Some Moroccan hospitals suggested in case of both spouses being health workers, to only deploy one of them for the COVID management in order to help alleviate strain on their households.
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